Extended Task Cycle
How can you design and deepen the grounding of your emergent gaian gameworld?
How can you design and deepen the grounding of your emergent gaian gameworld?
In the 3 part article ‘Can you be Regenerating the World, Serving a Community and Developing Yourself, simultaneously?’ we consider 4 hypotheses of research. This article is exploring a possibility in hypothesis 2 ‘Combining the maps, distinctions and frameworks of both practices create more awareness and will for people to develop and places to expand to their potential’.
The Extended Task Cycle is a framework* for Gaian Gameworlds.
Please notice that we are talking about experiential reality in both PM and RD, meaning that is not enough to understand (intellectual body) these distinctions and frameworks. You need to live them, to embody them, a 5 bodies embodiment.
(*) We distinguish ‘Distinctions’ (PM) from ‘Frameworks’ (RD). Both practices have both and they are different. Distinctions are energetic declarations that change who you are and experience the world in 5 bodies. Frameworks use ‘distinctions’ and propose a way for using them in action, usually through questions (one of the 3 powers in PM and a critical element in RD approaches). The role of the framework is to shift the space to an alive space, igniting our Being and exploring uncharted territories. ‘Tetrad’ and ‘codex’ are ‘frameworks’. ‘3 worlds’ and ‘place’ are distinctions. We will deepen this theme in another article..
From PM
In Possibility Management (PM) we distinguish 3 worlds: upperworld, middleworld and underworld. If you don’t have this distinction, you don’t understand why, in each new year, you put wishes that a few days or weeks later have already been forgotten (e.g. quitting smoking, losing weight) — your gremlin make it happen — gremlin is the king/queen of your underworld, is that part in you that, when uninitiated, wants that everything stay the same, that defends your box. In a project, if you don’t have this distinction the project can end suddenly and you don’t know why, like Gil describes in the article “How the underworld can undermine a regenerative endeavor ?” (to be published in a ‘medium near you’).
The Middleworld is the material world where there is money, time and other people. The Upperworld is the world of Bright Principles, such as clarity, love happening and learning. The Underworld is ruled by the gremlin and has shadow principles, such as lying, manipulation, control, seduction, revenge and resentment. If you’re not initiated into this distinction, you don’t know what part of you is ruling your life, your project, your gameworld, even if you have “good” intentions and your role in society is perceived as constructive and positive.
This distinction applies to individuals, teams and gameworlds, that is, it is relevant for the 3 lines of work:
How can this distinction, this thoughtmap could inform us and our gameworlds ?
How can it support us in deepening the responsibility level and have more possibilities for action?
How can this distinction be nurtured to keep us connected and not reactive towards a client, to a project, to a region?
How does this distinction support my self-observation and self-reflection about seeing the whole systems and both activating and restraining forces in each situation?
From the upper world we have bright purpose and bright principles. From the underworld we have hidden purpose and shadow principles. The task cycle has inself the middle world of products and competences.
In Possibility Management we also have the map of 3 forces (assertive, denying and sustaining) and the distinction “if you don’t include the denying force in your gameworld it comes from the outside”.
From RD
Regenerative Development (RD) uses task cycle framework that considers 4 elements into the development of a task — tasks can be measured, connected to other tasks, a network of tasks and could unfold new tasks in a gaian gameworld:
Purpose: why are we reading doing this? What’s the benefit for the larger wholes (Will)? How do we create the required field (Being)? What concrete action could support that (Function)?
Products (including services, material and nonmaterial): What are the tangible and intangible outputs that this task cycle consciously intends to create or nurture?
Process: What is the structure and series of actions used for producing these products and fulfill the purpose?
Capabilities: What functional competencies, capacities and skills do we need to hold, nurture or develop in our system to fulfill this task?
RD has the framework Function/ Being / Will distinctions, the 5 capitals framework (human, social, built, ecological and financial) and the law of 3 forces: activating, Restraining and Reconciling.
Extended Task Cycle
Our hypothesis is to combine this different frameworks creates a new framework that is suitable for exploring emergent gameworlds:
Task cycle
Purpose: Function / being / will (RD)
3 worlds (PM): Upper: bright purpose and principles // Under: hidden purpose and shadow principles
Products: 5 capitals (RD)
Process: Law of 3 forces (RD and PM)
The element of purpose could be explored using the Function/ Being / Will distinctions and bright principles and shadow principles.
The element of products could be explored using the 5 capitals framework.
The element of process could be explored using the law of 3 forces: activating, Restraining and Reconciling.
We are applying this framework for emergent gameworlds like we did in:
ISEG in last June (see below)
Activation Program (Codex)
Valsassina case (in progress)
GoParity case (in progress)
Case study: ISEG
On the 27th and 28th of June, Gil and Marco participated in ISEG’s Skills Up Week, Teamwork module. In 3 sessions of 2h, we designed an experience for about 50 university participants (about 2/3 women and average age around 20) to experience:
Responsible and regenerative culture
Work in teams organized in a circle, among peers, with responsibility in ‘I’ and not in ‘We’
Possibility Management
Regenerative Development
Participatory and collaborative methods in action
To signal the change in context, we chose to do it outdoors, in contact with the natural elements. From what we were told, it was the first outside class at ISEG.
We worked in a large circle, with the whole group, in pairs, in teams (groups between 2 to 7 people) focused on topics that mattered to the participants and directly linked to ISEG. We use consent decision making.
It was an experience of seeing PM+RD (Possibility Management (PM) and Regenerative Development (RD)) in action. We designed this event using maps and distinctions from the two gameworlds. We made the system aware of itself using constellations (mappings) of the group in the themes of sustainability and teamwork. We also invited everyone to do an exercise (a “game”) that allowed us to create the necessary “gap” to have the will and purpose to navigate with us during the sessions (being also a linking element between the sessions) as well as nourishing the experiential reality, in a non-linear way, that we have been promoting.
With the maps on the levels of responsibility (PM) and levels of thinking in sustainability (DR) we laid the foundations for the responsible and regenerative culture on which group work was based. The teamwork (PM) map made visible the limits of current culture and the current edge in exploration.
Using the 4 feelings, in particular the distinctions about anger (PM), groups (from 2 to 7 people) were created on topics in which the participants were interested and were important to them, topics such as ‘waste management at ISEG’, ‘teacher-student relationship’ and ‘ISEG’s hierarchical organization’.
Each group defined its question (Quest), a possible project to navigate the question and a concrete task to perform (as a first step in this journey). With the task cycle (RD) framework, the task was structured, with feedback and coaching from the spaceholders. The work carried out was presented with an emphasis on maps and fundamental distinctions regarding teamwork, thinking about sustainability and responsibility. We have introduced celebration and appreciation as key elements in a responsible and regenerative culture — how can we regenerate our energy? (PM).
Some sharings that show the shift that happened in the participants: ‘We realized that we were using old thoughtware and from there we asked ourselves how we could think differently, outside the box’; ‘This is how I want to work, in these teams where everyone participates, we are heard and respected and we can disagree with each other without drama’; ‘ We noticed that our energy was waning and we took responsibility for it, doing something different that changed the energy of the group’; ‘I wish classes were more like this’.
The new map of results (PM) allowed the consolidation of the work done in the 3 sessions and created a door for each participant to define how they would use their vacations to change their context. Several ideas came up like ‘doing volunteer work on a farm’, ‘visiting different projects where I live’ and ‘doing volunteer work in Africa’. We did a final circle and a participatory evaluation. We are saddened to see that the most challenging topic for the participants is how to ‘apply and make this experience useful’ and happy to realize that the experience has brought ‘human development’ to the different participants. We hear in the final circle words like ‘enthusiasm’, ‘excitement’, ‘surprise’, ‘gratitude’, ‘learning’, ‘anger for being over (being short)’. Some participants also mentioned ‘tiredness’. One young woman (whose eyes had been shining since the first constellation) cried when she mentioned that it was clear to her that what she wanted to do in life was exactly what Gil and I were doing right there. A few others asked where they could learn more about PM and RD.
In the link you can find the task cycle of this activity, as well as the actual maps of the sessions.
It worked for us:
Participatory and collaborative structure
Opening and Expansion (Gap) with the constellations and game
Laying the foundations of responsible and regenerative culture before team building
Using anger by evolving the map of feelings (‘I’m used to seeing anger separate and not join’)
Extended Task cycle, have the FCUL case and the application example
Presentation around learning/reflection with team support, celebration and appreciation
Articulate the distinctions of PM+RD
Did not work:
The outside is unprepared/hard to deal with the wind and sun as well as the sound
Little time for team dynamics
Little time for the big circle
There was no institutional connection to ISEG so the projects could be consequential and follow-through.
Learnings:
Format allows you to experience the main distinctions of a responsible and regenerative culture
6 hours seems to be a lower limit for this experience
Using the institution as the working arena works, in order to create value for the system within we are nested.
The report of this case you can find in the link.